Combining captivating storytelling with eye-opening findings, Inviting Disaster delves inside some of history's worst catastrophes in order to show how increasingly "smart" systems leave us wide open to human tragedy. Weaving a dramatic narrative that explains how breakdowns in these systems result in such disasters as the chain reaction crash of the Air France Concorde to the meltdown at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station, Chiles vividly demonstrates how the battle between man and machine may be escalating beyond manageable limits -- and why we all have a stake in its outcome. Included in this edition is a special introduction providing a behind-the-scenes look at the World Trade Center catastrophe. Combining firsthand accounts of employees' escapes with an in-depth look at the structural reasons behind the towers' collapse, Chiles addresses the question, Were the towers "two tall heroes" or structures with a fatal flaw?

On July 25, 2000, a small piece of debris on the runway at a Paris airport caused a tire to blow out on an Air France Concorde during its take off. A heavy slab of rubber that spun off from a tire created a shock wave in a wing tank, which burst open and sent fuel streaming into an engine intake. As flames trailed two hundred feet behind, the aircraft rolled out of control. The crash killed all 109 people on board and 4 more on the ground. The tragedy of that departing Concorde is just one of many such chain-reaction catastrophes that have occurred as the world has grown more technologically complex and as our machines have become more difficult to control -- and more deadly. Now, in a riveting investigation into the causes and often brutal consequences of technological breakdowns, James R. Chiles offers stunning new insights into the increasingly frequent machine disasters that haunt our lives. The shocking breakup of the Challenger; the dark February morning when the Atlantic swallowed the giant drilling rig Ocean Ranger; the fiery PEPCON factory explosion in Nevada; a deadly runaway police van in Minnesota: Chiles tracks the causes and consequences of these system breakdowns and others, vividly demonstrating why the battle between man and machine may be escalating beyond manageable limits -- and why we all have a stake in its outcome. Chiles reconstructs moments of confusion and then terror as systems collapse, operators make fateful, sometimes incorrect choices, and disaster follows. He uncovers surprising links between past and present tragedies, such as the connections between nineteenth-century steamboat explosions and twentieth-century nuclear power plant failures. And he analyzes the numerous near misses that don't always make the evening news -- times when the quick thinking, heroic gestures, and expert actions of a few individuals have saved the lives of many, often just in time. Combining riveting storytelling with eye-opening findings, Inviting Disaster shows what happens when our reach for new technology exceeds our grasp, and explains what we need to know to survive on the machine frontier.

Combining captivating storytelling with eye-opening findings, Inviting Disaster delves inside some of history's worst catastrophes in order to show how increasingly "smart" systems leave us wide open to human tragedy. Weaving a dramatic narrative that explains how breakdowns in these systems result in such disasters as the chain reaction crash of the Air France Concorde to the meltdown at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station, Chiles vividly demonstrates how the battle between man and machine may be escalating beyond manageable limits -- and why we all have a stake in its outcome. Included in this edition is a special introduction providing a behind-the-scenes look at the World Trade Center catastrophe. Combining firsthand accounts of employees' escapes with an in-depth look at the structural reasons behind the towers' collapse, Chiles addresses the question, Were the towers "two tall heroes" or structures with a fatal flaw?

White House speechwriter Marc Thiessen was locked in a secure room and given access to the most sensitive intelligence when he was tasked to write President George W. Bush’s 2006 speech explaining the CIA’s interrogation program and why Congress should authorize it. Few know more about these CIA operations than Thiessen. In his new book, Courting Disaster, Thiessen documents just how effective the CIA’s interrogations were in foiling attacks on America, penetrating al-Qaeda’s high command, and providing our military with actionable intelligence.